


When Brad met Patrick

by PureBatWings



Category: The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Genre: Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10084988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureBatWings/pseuds/PureBatWings
Summary: Movie Prequel. Brad starts to realize some disconcerting truths about his sexuality and meets Patrick his junior year...Usual legal disclaimers apply. Not my characters, not for money, no copyright infringement implied.





	

At first, he’s not sure about this whole high school thing. 

He’s been at Immaculate Heart of Mary since fourth grade, he knew everyone in his class of forty kids and everyone thought they knew him. To everyone there, he was Brad, the best one at football in his grade; a smart enough guy to make Bs when he didn’t study much and A minuses mostly if he bothered to crack the books and liked the class. His mom was active in the Altar Guild and PTA and his dad had served on the parish vestry and was a friend of Father Monahan as well. 

But Dad had pointed out when he finished up eighth grade how much better Mill Grove’s team was—why in the last decade college scouts had recruited four seniors and one had even been a top pick for the NFL --before he’d died his senior year in college in a car accident. So Brad had agreed to give the public high school a try. He had made the JV squad freshman year, caught Coach’s eye with his dedication to practice drills and was told he’d play varsity his sophomore year. His shop class project was good enough he got roped in by Mrs. Marconi, the English teacher and drama club advisor, into building sets for MGHS theater productions.

“Carpentry skills are useful for a man to have,” his dad said approvingly when he told him about his extracurricular activity. “I know you’ll ignore the faggots and be fine, and if one gets fresh you just pop him one in the face, knock out a few teeth.”

Despite himself, Brad couldn’t follow that order. He knew he’d be suspended from the team for fighting another student. That was his sensible reason for avoiding bullying the queer boys and dykes. His other reason he kept to himself. He loved watching male athletes in all sorts of sports. Yeah, lots of people of all kinds watched sports. And girls were nice, but just not that interesting to him. Maybe that would change later in high school.

It was watching the Olympic diving on TV a few weeks after his sophomore year started and getting a boner that wouldn’t quit that he began to seriously fear he might be gay. It was kind of hard to ignore his response to all the hard bodies in small swimsuits— there was seven inches of insistent flesh in his lap that refused to go lie down and be quiet, like a disobedient dog wanting to be taken for a walk. And so he kept watching—rippling muscles, the broad expanse of chests and backs, tight butts and tensing calves as the divers raised themselves on tip toes, focused, balanced and suddenly threw themselves, lightning fast into somersaults to land in the pool far below with barely a splash. It took his breath away and then made him breathe harder, wanting to see more… he didn’t care if the Chinese placed best overall or that Greg Louganis won two gold medals.

He tried to forget, he dated cheerleaders, the student government secretary, a flute player in the marching band, and, for a change, a stoner chick and some artsy types like the class goth, Alice. He’d kissed them and groped and been groped. They were too soft, he was afraid he’d break them or something. His quiet despairing conclusion was that boobs and pussy just didn’t do it for him, no matter how cute the girl. His social life and popularity was driven by his need to look normal and fit in with the other jocks. 

Brad snuck glances in the showers after games, comparing himself to the other guys. Hell, everyone wondered who was biggest. He just made sure not to look too long since half of his good friends were his teammates. The other half of his friends were the drama club types, and those two friendship circles didn’t overlap by much, thank God.

Once he gave himself permission to start looking, around Christmas his sophomore year at guys-- in the mall, playing football, walking down the school’s halls joshing with friends-- that was when things got complicated with all his questions that he had no one to ask. How could he be queer when he was a jock, not a sissy boy? How could you even tell if another guy might be willing to fool around after a few beers?

He couldn’t see how he’d manage to get up the nerve to kiss a guy stone cold sober. He’d want the excuse of being drunk so if he were accused of being a faggot, he could claim he was so drunk he either forgot or didn’t know what he was doing. He flipped burgers at his summer job when he wasn’t practicing football with his friends, brooded over the deep fat fryer which made him reek of rancid grease and filled up cups with ice and pop for the drive thru's customers. It probably gave him far too much time to think and try to plan out his life.

He decided he’d just have to find a gay guy to fool around with, maybe in college. He sure hoped he’d get laid before that, though. Then maybe he could figure out if he was really a pansy. His parents could never know, Mom would die of embarrassment and worry he was going to die of AIDS. Dad would kill him before Brad would have time to die of AIDS—Dad would just murder him for being a cocksucking sodomite.

A big college, far away from Pittsburgh was his best bet, something not too far from a big city, maybe Chicago, with gay bars where he could hook up with guys anonymously. Thus settled with how he would control his urges and his life, he had tempted fate too much.

Each year some people moved away or transferred in. Junior year brought two new people into the drama club along with the nervous little freshmen who were understudies for secondary roles. The two new juniors were Sam Dutton, a pretty brown eyed girl who had a reputation for being a bit of a slut according to Richard Burke, the tight-end who knew her neighbor’s cousin from her old school across town, and her stepbrother, Patrick Connolly.

\+ + + + + +

Transferring schools at junior year sucked, decided Patrick. At least the marriage between Sam’s mom and Patrick’s dad was going fine and Sam was very cool. She had no problem with him being gay. She teased him, calling him Big Brother (by three months) and let him show her some cool dance moves he’d seen on MTV videos. They practiced a routine in their living room where they had space to do swings and lifts and to kick up their heels. They had met doing live Rocky Horror shows last year and had introduced their respective divorced parents and the rest was stepfamily history.

He had to tell some idiot jocks to fuck off in the hallway his first week at Mill Grove when they called him Paddy and knocked his hat off his head, saying, “Show us your lucky charms, faggot.”

Patrick growled, making one jump back at the sound and said, “you’ll call me Patrick or you’ll call me nothing,” his dark eyes blazing. 

The jocks had the sense, like a wolf pack, to realize their prey could inflict too much damage to be worth it. Rich gave him a final shove into a locker and said, mockingly, “See you later, Nothing.”

“Asshole,” he muttered, picking up his Steelers cap and stowing it in his backpack next to his British lit textbook for English class.

He was snagged by Sam who forced him into the desk next to hers in English class. They also had Algebra III/Trig together before lunch. “There’s auditions after school today, we’re totally going,” she said, excited, trying to do her Jedi mind trick where she locked gazes with him.

“No, Sam, I don't wanna...” he started to whine, before Mrs. Marconi cleared her throat and began to talk about Oscar Wilde and The Importance of Being Earnest, the drama they’d be reading and discussing the next two weeks. Sam took notes and Patrick started to read ahead in the play. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” He liked that quote, it sounded like the sort of clever thing he imagined people saying at college. It wouldn’t get douches like Rich off his back, but he’d found a smartass response made people laugh and that often helped him avoid or delay getting beaten up. 

His favorite class to hate was shop. Some school board idiot had decided everyone had to pass it as a graduation requirement. It just didn’t make sense to him how the pieces fit together and how you got a certain shape cut out of a hunk of wood and eventually made a clock out of it. Now, ask his mind to memorize lines and comebacks to Rocky Horror, sing a song or come up with a stylish ensemble for drama club and that was easy-peasy. Measure once, cut twice, not so much.

So he tended to stay away from the tech/building types backstage. He found a number of cool kids in the front house crew to go to parties with, and Sam had become firm friends with Alice and Mary Elizabeth, who was bossy and take charge, but with a good sense of humor. She was an excellent prop manager and assistant stage manager. One night during _Earnest’_ s intermission later in the fall semester, a beefy blond guy had shoved him out of the way of a heavy falling backdrop that got overturned by some other jerk guys horsing around backstage. Mrs. Marconi had verbally ripped them each a new one and tossed them from the drama club for the rest of the term.

“Thanks for saving me, set-building dude, good reflexes” said Patrick, rolling over and back up onto his feet, clad in Black Converses.

“I didn’t want your head going through that Victorian scenery canvas, that took hours for Alice to paint and me to stretch over the wood supports,” explained Brad. “But you’re welcome, anyway.”

“You’re Brad, right? Football team, running back?”

“Half-back. You like football?”

“Adore watching it. What’s not to like, rooting for the other team to get their faces ground into the turf?” Patrick didn’t add that brawny men in tight pants were an always enjoyable sight. 

They started passing the time during rehearsals hanging out, then going jogging together on the weekends, hanging out discussing the best music in the rec room in Brad's family's basement with the top 10 music videos show playing on VH1.

“Sinead O’Connor,” said Brad, “for a bald Irish chick, she’s hot. I love dark eyes.”

“Madonna in her latest incarnation in Vogue,” countered Patrick. "She's always reinventing herself, I admire that."

“George Michael is a music god, even if he’s a flamer,” said Brad as they listened to “Freedom 90.”

“Hey!” said Patrick sounding insulted, “I resemble that remark!”

“What, the music god part or the flamer part?” Brad demanded.

Patrick paused a minute and then, honest to god, blushed a bit. “You should come see me and Sam in the live production of Rocky Horror on Friday nights. She’s currently Magenta and I’m the understudy for Frankenfurter and play any of the parts when they need a warm body for the song and dance numbers.”

“I’ll come see you guys if you answer my question. Music god or gay?”

“Umm, both,” said Patrick and took a swallow of his beer to calm his nerves at coming out to his friend.

“Thought so,” said Brad, took a deep swig of his half-full bottle of Iron City and with a surge of courage, straddled Patrick’s lap and kissed him thoroughly. Patrick put one hand on Brad’s muscled back, a deft hand around his neck and gently pulled Brad’s head back to look in his dilated eyes.

“You don’t play for my team, do you? Why’re you doing this, to win a bet?”

“NO! God no! I don’t want anyone to know I kissed you, why would I bet about such a queer thing. I don’t know, I might be gay, I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have had that third beer…” he trailed off, before putting his lips on Patrick’s Adam’s apple and licking a stripe up his neck. The taste of salt and the musk of Patrick was making him half-hard already. He dropped a hand into Patrick’s lap and palmed his groin. Patrick's cock sat up and took notice.

“Oh, oh-kay,” said Patrick helplessly, a delighted grin curling the corners of his mouth. “I’ll be your experiment,” and let his hands drop to Brad’s muscled butt and squeeze as he leaned in for another kiss. 

The experiment got serious on Patrick’s side, and yet Brad would usually only fool around when he was half-drunk. Then, at school, they would pretend to be only casual acquaintances. Each time Brad joked about faggots like Elton John with his teammates in the hallways between classes, Patrick died a little inside. He really loved Brad, his smirky smile, his personality that was far more serious than the joking athlete he showed the world of Mill Grove High School, and his body and god, his strong, talented hands. They kept up their secret balancing act and only Sam and a few trusted friends knew they had hooked up until things fell totally apart their senior year…


End file.
